Did We Throw Up Rubbish Buildings in the Boom?

Leftist · 31-01-2013 10:18AM

structurally? I don't know.

Architecturally? yes. Look at the national conference centre, looks like a tin of beans stuck in a block of concrete. All these garrish glass and metal buildings have zero character.

myflipflops · 31-01-2013 10:20AM

I don't know anything about building or construction but I have lived in four different countries now including Ireland and I lived for at least one year in similarly priced apartments in each of those countries. I can say without doubt that the apartments I lived in in Dublin (one in Ballsbridge, one in Rathfarnham) were of much lower quality than anything I have experience in the other countries.

The amount of noise leakage I experienced in apartments in Dublin was terrible.

Solair · 31-01-2013 10:22AM

There's no doubt but that it was one of the most stupid eras of Irish history. Effectively we were conned and many, many people bought into the hype that went along with the con.

Billions upon billions were borrowed and handed over to developers and/or borrowed by developers and landowners who made an absolute fortune.

All that's left is a load of mediocre to poor quality buildings, many of which are unoccupied as they're built in stupid locations and a massive debt which was mindbogglingly nationalised !

That real estate boom quite litterally destroyed the country, financially and probably to a large degree physically and socially as well.

A few people became obscenely wealthy at the expense of everyone who was stupid enough to be sucked into the scam that was the property bubble.

It was a big pyramid scheme, dressed up as a property boom.

the keen edge · 31-01-2013 10:22AM

Dravokivich wrote: »

Well, if we've all seen the same things and none of us know each other, the generalising, isn't too far off.

I worked in the construction industry before during and after the celtic tiger years.
Yes there were a lot of badly built houses, but the vast majority were constructed to the required, and acceptable, standard.

To say (broadly) that houses built in the 30's-80's are of a better construction than those built during the 00's is just plain wrong.
Building control was pretty much nonexistent during that earlier period as were finances to be spent on buildings.

Older properties maybe roomier and be set on bigger plots of land but that is a result of the terrible planning c/o the various local authorities.
Matchbox sized apartments and ghosts estates aren't a result of poor building practice.

IMO its the infrastructure in Ireland that is the total fcuk up.

Plazaman · 31-01-2013 10:25AM

I only have to cite The Mill Apartments in Ballisodare, Co. Sligo to answer your question. A beautiful old stone building was torn down to build these abominations which are now derelict (see link).

The first potential buyer on the scene brought her own engineer with her when viewing the apartments much to the annoyance of the auctioneer. The engineer wasn't in the place 2 minutes when he spotted rising damp and the buyer left. Word got out and not one of the apartments were bought.

If only the builders knew about the possibility of dampness due to, say, the big fúcking river they built beside.

"Cowboys Ted, sure you could talk that into coming down".

Solair · 31-01-2013 10:27AM

It's quite clear that the planning system was about as useful as a chocolate teapot as vested interests just rode roughshod through it.

There was no reason, other than the state didn't want to, that we did not have enough building inspectors. You just levy the development to pay for them.

I think you're just going to see lots of derelict buildings appearing over the next 10+ years. Many of them were built for the buy-to-let sector, and the quality was poor and the on-going management/maintenance seems poor too. So, what will happen is people will buy/rent the good stuff, leaving the rubbish empty and it will just fall apart, crumble and have to be demolished.

We'd have been better off just shovelling the cash directly into a power station or blowing it all on a mad party, at least we'd have had some heat or fun or something.

Just imagine where we could be if all those vast numbers of billions had been invested into something productive like high tech start ups, R&D, university research, R&D / product development in the food sector, tourism projects, primary schools/secondary schools etc etc etc.

JRant · 31-01-2013 10:30AM

The problem goes back further in my opinion. In the late 70's and 80's a huge number of poorly built council houses were put up all across the country. The standards of these buildings was atrocious and paved the way for what was to come.

For me it boils down to three things;

Lack of proper planning
Lack of proper regulation
People not being employing there own independent structural engineer to validate any work that was done. A house is the single most expensive item most of us will ever buy, why you'd take the word alone of anyone when paying that kind of money is beyond me.

Leftist · 31-01-2013 10:30AM

myflipflops wrote: »

I don't know anything about building or construction but I have lived in four different countries now including Ireland and I lived for at least one year in similarly priced apartments in each of those countries. I can say without doubt that the apartments I lived in in Dublin (one in Ballsbridge, one in Rathfarnham) were of much lower quality than anything I have experience in the other countries.

The amount of noise leakage I experienced in apartments in Dublin was terrible.

I've lived in various newly built houses and duplexs etc. thrown up around dublin and they've all been awful. Paper walls, poorly wired, light fittings falling out of paper ceilings.
All just flung up for quick money while the party for jackasses lined their pockets.

myflipflops · 31-01-2013 10:32AM

the keen edge wrote: »

To say (broadly) that houses built in the 30's-80's are of a better construction than those built during the 00's is just plain wrong.

Would it not be true to say that house were built differently prior to the 'Celtic Tiger' period?

For example, my parents had the 2 houses I lived in growing up built themselves. They dealt directly with the builder in both cases so they could dictate what they wanted. The houses were built well above the required minimum standard because of this. This would have been pretty common in the 80's I guess? My parents were not wealthy.

The apartments thrown in the last 15 years were designed by the developers. People were purchasing them off plans with no idea of what quality they would be. It would have been offensively expensive at that time to get a smaller builder to construct an individual house from scratch.

staker · 31-01-2013 10:33AM

As a buddy of mine used say- "can't see it from my bedroom window!".
I wouldn't say many of the "one offs" buildings were built to an inferior standard as opposed to the apartment blocks and some lego estates which were literally flung up.
Go to most other European countries though and the architectural and planning aspect to their housing would be far superior to what was done here.
I have friends who paid 1/4 million and more for some of these lego houses and appartments- what an existence!-no amenities as such,very little space,cracked walls,warped skirting, dud internal doorlocks,loose sockets, cracked tiles, noise infiltration....

Grayson · 31-01-2013 10:34AM

who_me wrote: »

I think so. I think we've built a massive amount of 'disposable' architecture. Cheap and functional sure, but in 50 or so years when it starts to look a little tatty, it's more likely to be torn down while older buildings will retain their charm. I'm struggling to think of many buildings from the last 15 years or so that make me think "Yeah, that really adds to the city".

I used to frequent a popular Irish architecture forum, and it used to drive me nuts how many of them would rant on about the necessity of apartment-living (as opposed to everyone living in a detached house with a garden) to avoid urban sprawl. Sure, that makes sense; but then you have to build sustainable apartment buildings, including family-sized flats, adequate storage, outdoor/garden facilities, larger elevators for moving in furniture etc. Instead, planning permission is awarded to buildings with tiny apartments with no facilities, maximising the financial return but meaning everyone sees an apartment as a temporary home until they move to a bigger house in the suburbs, so the whole plan goes tits up.

I found it funny that one award winning apartment development in Cork city centre was slammed by on the forum by one of its own architects! He claimed the senior architect was more concerned with how it looked externally and had little regard for the practicality of the internal layout (and, IMO, the exterior of the building in question isn't up to much either!) And also in Cork, we had one proposal submitted to build in the middle of the Lee (I kid you not), and another on one of the bridges.

And that's just talking about the architecture, don't get me started on the build quality!

I went to view an apartment to rent on Tuesday. It's a one bed room job. The one bedroom had a doublebed that was up against the wall. It had 1ft of free space at the bottom and 1.5-2ft on the other side. The door barely opened.
I want to know who designed an apartment like that. The sittingroom/kitchen was tiny too, but the bedroom was what really got me. Who would actually think that it was ok to build an apt block with rooms that tiny.

I do think we need to cutdown on urban sprawl, but you're right, if we're building apt blocks, we need to do more than just build a series of boxes.

mattjack · 31-01-2013 10:36AM

Leftist wrote: »

I've lived in various newly built houses and duplexs etc. thrown up around dublin and they've all been awful. Paper walls, poorly wired, light fittings falling out of paper ceilings.
All just flung up for quick money while the party for jackasses lined their pockets.

When you say poorly wired , do you mean with electrical faults ? my understanding was that all installations had to be verified and tested before being handed over.

Solair · 31-01-2013 10:38AM

I think there was also a lack of an ability to differentiate between "development" and "mindless building of random stuff anywhere at any cost regardless of demand".

It also shows that the political system and governance system had absolutely zero ability to plan/manage the building of property.

We need to drop the terms "development" and "developers" it should be just "buildings" and "builders" / "speculators". The terminology's totally misleading.

Solair · 31-01-2013 10:43AM

mattjack wrote: »

When you say poorly wired , do you mean with electrical faults ? my understanding was that all installations had to be verified and tested before being handed over.

Nope!
We only introduced mandatory electrical regulations long after the building boom was over.

Ireland (and also the UK) had some of the weakest electrical regulations in the developed world in terms of who could do what and inspection regimes.

The England/Wales and NI only really tightened things up with the introduction of "Part P" of the building regulations was introduced and Ireland only relatively recently too when the CER took over electrical regulation.

Before that it was all largely theoretical stuff. We had wiring rules, and we had all sorts of requirements but little/no enforcement and over-reliance on self-regulation.

I've heard accounts from relatives/friends of relatives etc One guy who worked on apartment blocks in the UK while he was in college in the 1970s. He wasn't a contractor/fitter/electrical contractor etc although he was studying a very technical subject, yet he wired multi-story buildings for a contractor and also on complicated structural steel stuff apparently without any supervision at all.
A lot of our high-quality electrical installations were just down to diligent electricians in the old days. There was really no enforcement of anything by anyone.

Apparently that was absolutely 'the norm' across the building boom in the 70s over there. Just very little supervision, lack of qualified staff etc etc.

In fact, I don't think the term 'electrician' was even protected!

Architetect wasn't a protected title until quite recently.

The contrast with US states is amazing though. When you consider that you have to have a state license to do all sorts of trades and it's rigerously enforced.

Electrical Contractors, Plumbers, Construction trades of all sorts are highly regulated in most US states and licenses are required to call yourself any of those things. If you don't have a license, you can be facing serious criminal prosecution.

In some states even barbers and hairdressers have to be qualified and officially licensed.

donegal_road · 31-01-2013 10:44AM

many of the houses built during the boom are health time-bombs because the contractors never bothered putting down a radon barrier.

Radon is thought to cause 16% of lung cancer deaths in Canada

.

Solair · 31-01-2013 10:59AM

Just to give you an idea of how things work in say Massachusetts -

Over 50 trades and professions are subject to a state-controlled licensing regime (not self-regulation by an industry itself)

You can even verify the person's license online ! http://license.reg.state.ma.us/public/licque.asp?color=blue

That compares to Ireland (or England) where it's all rather more chaotic and based on some kind of notion that nobody would ever lie about their qualifications ever.

Unlike Germany, the Nordic Countries, Netherlands, the USA etc I think Ireland and Britain have always looked down their noses at tradespeople and seen them as unimportant. There's a long history of "professionals" vs "trades" in this part of the world and I really think that is part of the problem.

You see it a lot in the UK with the complete misunderstanding and misuse of terms like "engineer" being thrown around to describe everything from a person who is hugely qualified and designs massively complex industrial plants to the guy who does a weekend course to learn how to screw satellite dishes to your house in the cheapest, ugliest way possible...

I mean, you'd have more issues with people checking that someone had the correct documentation to verify their BA in French Literature than you would have people checking that someone was actually a qualified plumber. Yet, the plumber's the one who could destroy your house!

There's a major, fundamental problem in this part of the world with an inability to regulate and a preference for laissez faire and industry self-regulation.

ronan45 · 31-01-2013 11:01AM

ha ha, Belive me kids, During the boom i was on quite a few building sites....Ask ANYONE that was, and they will tell you there were P L E N T Y of cowboys operating. Cheap Materials, cheap labour,

kylith · 31-01-2013 11:08AM

dttq wrote: »

Yes we did. What I would like to know is which imbeciles granted permission for that yoke on Dame Street outside Dublin castle - pretty much destoyed that part of the street. It's infuriating seen that piece of muck also defacing a square previously enclosed on that side of the road by magnificent Georgian buildings.

God, that thing makes me apoplectic. I'd like to give whoever signed off on that a good kick up the arse.

Sacramento wrote: »

Yes, definitely. The most annoying regulation they made was having those fecking electric fans come on when you turn on a light switch in a room that was either a bathroom or a room with no boundary walls. You might think that actually makes sense, but not when the fans were so poorly made that they all ended up breaking.

Radiators under the windows was another one.

Too many air vents that weren't sealed properly so air could flow freely inside the walls themselves.

Using the wrong nails (or using the right nails the wrong way) in walls so that the plaster that covers the head of the nail falls off from vibrations of people walking up the stairs or closing doors.

Radiators are supposed to go under the windows, for the proper circulation of the warm air. Basically the cold air from the window will push the rising hot air down and circulate it through the room at mid-height. If the radiator is against another wall the heat just rises to the ceiling, goes along the ceiling until it meets the opposite wall, then goes down the wall, and never reaches the middle of the room. The problem is that people put long curtains over them, which stops the warm air from circulating at all.

mattjack · 31-01-2013 11:09AM

Solair wrote: »

Just to give you an idea of how things work in say Massachusetts -

Over 50 trades and professions are subject to a state-controlled licensing regime (not self-regulation by an industry itself)

You can even verify the person's license online ! http://license.reg.state.ma.us/public/licque.asp?color=blue

That compares to Ireland (or England) where it's all rather more chaotic and based on some kind of notion that nobody would ever lie about their qualifications ever.

I can agree with you there, I've seen situations where people have claimed to be tradesmen but were generally caught out within a day or two.
I've been a bit disingenious with you, I worked for twenty years as an electrician mainly for long periods with the same contractor, part of my job in recent years was to test and verify installations.
By the sounds of things you probally know what's involved , are aware too that some of the meters are calibrated by outside agencies annually and do a series a tests polarity,tripping time etc
I have on occasion refused to hand over paperwork etc when I found a fault or had a cocern about something.

Appreciate your comments though.

Lollipops23 · 31-01-2013 11:12AM

Leftist wrote: »

Architecturally? yes. Look at the national conference centre, looks like a tin of beans stuck in a block of concrete. All these garrish glass and metal buildings have zero character.

I actually like the conference centre

The problem was never pyrite- that's present in a huge amount of stone infill of loads of houses built over the years.

The problem that's become apparent in Belmayne/Clongriffin and all the other properties that now need remedial works on them, is that because they threw those buildings up in record time, water and air is well able to get in to the foundations and stone infill, causing them to swell and create cracks.

Pyrite is not actually the problem in a lot of cases-crappy builds are.

Solair · 31-01-2013 11:13AM

Well, that's one argument for putting them under windows. The main reason was a lot more simple and non-technical.

If you look at any room, the walls that are most unlikely to have furniture placed against them are the ones with windows.

If you put a radiator on another wall it's likely to end up jammed behind a bookshelf / wardrobe / dressing table / bed-head / sofa etc and that means the furniture will be sticking out anything up to a few inches from the wall.

If you put the radiator under the window, it's less obtrusive.

The argument about air flow doesn't really make sense and also it tends to mean that the radiator is likely to be behind heavy curtains which just blocks the heat output / confuses radiator thermostatic valves etc etc.

kylith · 31-01-2013 11:17AM

Solair wrote: »

Well, that's one argument for putting them under widows. The main reason was a lot more simple and non-technical.

If you look at any room, the walls that are most unlikely to have furniture placed against them are the ones with windows.

If you put a radiator on another wall it's likely to end up jammed behind a bookshelf / wardrobe / dressing table / bed-head / sofa etc and that means the furniture will be sticking out anything up to a few inches from the wall.

If you put the radiator under the window, it's less obtrusive.

The argument about air flow doesn't really make sense and also it tends to mean that the radiator is likely to be behind heavy curtains which just blocks the heat output / confuses radiator thermostatic valves etc etc.

Yeah, and that. None of the rooms in my house have the radiator under the window, and it makes putting furniture in a frakking nightmare.

Solair · 31-01-2013 11:26AM

mattjack wrote: »

I can agree with you there, I've seen situations where people have claimed to be tradesmen but were generally caught out within a day or two.
I've been a bit disingenious with you, I worked for twenty years as an electrician mainly for long periods with the same contractor, part of my job in recent years was to test and verify installations.
By the sounds of things you probally know what's involved , are aware too that some of the meters are calibrated by outside agencies annually and do a series a tests polarity,tripping time etc
I have on occasion refused to hand over paperwork etc when I found a fault or had a cocern about something.

Appreciate your comments though.

I realise that that's what happens on well-run sites. The problem certainly was that at the peak of the building boom there simply weren't the resources nor were there the legal requirements to ensure universal compliance with the regulations.

Many other countries require a complete electrical and gas safety inspection every time a property is sold and every X years for rental properties. We are still no where near that level of regulation.

My concern is more that other trades are still largely unregulated. Gas plumbing and electrical work are the only two that come to mind that have at least some regulation and inspection.

We need more regulation / control of general plumbing (non-gas), carpentry, tiling, plastering, insulation installation etc etc and general structural work too.

During the boom times the cowboys definitely operated in a big way.

In terms of electrical regulations. We had a kitchen installer upgrade our kitchen and they said they'd had an electrician carry out the electrical work.

They hadn't upgraded the fuse box (which was a 1970s era screw-in diazed panel, not MCBs). Anyway, one day we noticed a slight smell of burn. One of the fuses was roaring hot.

They'd basically just wired the whole new kitchen to an old 20amp radial circuit. The electrician who came out to solve the problem had to rewire the whole thing as they'd just daisy chained a load of socket onto the existing wiring and somehow tampered with the fuse to ensure it didn't blow.

It could have burnt the house down!

That kind of stuff simply shouldn't be possible with a serious inspection / certification regime that would require that to be inspected and signed off by someone independent.

krudler · 31-01-2013 11:28AM

Jesus yes, last house I lived in was a celtic tiger house, you could turn over in bed and hear it in every other room, wooden hollow floors everywhere, could hear the next door neighbour walking around her kitchen if she was wearing heels clear as day. so hard to keep warm too, there seemed to be vans from insulation companies parked outside a house in the estate every other week

Solair · 31-01-2013 11:35AM

krudler wrote: »

Jesus yes, last house I lived in was a celtic tiger house, you could turn over in bed and hear it in every other room, wooden hollow floors everywhere, could hear the next door neighbour walking around her kitchen if she was wearing heels clear as day. so hard to keep warm too, there seemed to be vans from insulation companies parked outside a house in the estate every other week

We lived in an apartment of that era in Cork and had to actually leave (and breech the lease) because of problems like that.

The gates were attached to the building and all night all you could hear was a really loud "Bannnnng" everytime someone went in / out. It was so loud it would wake us up.

The lift was totally audible at all times. You could hear people talking in it, the insulation was so bad!

Cigerette smoke seemed to penetrate the apartment from the unit next-door. We never figured out where it was coming from, but it seemed to be just seeping through the hot press / back of a wardrobe somewhere!

Then, the final straw was when the fire alarms kept going off. Every few nights at random times during the night the whole building's alarms would go off and we'd have to evacuate. The was no way of silencing them and the fire brigade would come along and go through the building and check it was all OK (which it was).

This kept happening over and over, with no consequences!

On top of that there were mould / mildew problems developing. The windows wouldn't open / handles fell off. Loads of electrical issues (lights not working for no apparent reason, sockets loose in wall etc etc)

I was at the stage I was falling asleep at work, couldn't function with all the noise. Approached the landlord and got nowhere at all. Threatened to leave and got shouted at by them on the street and everything! It was unbelievable stuff.

So, we broke the lease, lost the deposit and left. The landlord threatened us with legal action and everything over it as they didn't accept that we should be allowed terminate the lease. Nothing ever came of it, but it was so stressful that I couldn't sleep or anything. Endless phone calls, shouting matches, legalistic letters etc etc.

It's the second apartment we've had really bad problems with and to be honest it nearly makes us consider just emigrating to a country with proper building regulations. Life's too short to be spending time arguing with someone about issues that simply shouldn't be issues in the first place.

That whole incident caused us major disruption (had to move unnecessarily) and cost us a couple of grand in terms of lost deposit (+extra deposit for new place), utility bill cancellation fees etc etc and the cost of the move.

We rented another place (not in Cork) and it looked nice, new build town-house. One day my other half closed the hall door with a bit of a bang, and there was a crumbling noise as all the plaster fell of the stairwell !!!!

I can only imagine what a nightmare it must be for some poor unfortunate who has actually purchased one of these heaps and has a huge mortgage on it.

Balmed Out · 31-01-2013 11:45AM

Ive only rented 4 properties, 2 older and 2 newer so my sample size is limited however in both the newer properties I noticed that light switches cnstantly broke or sockets would come loose. Whats that about?

Solair · 31-01-2013 11:46AM

Balmed Out wrote: »

Ive only rented 4 properties, 2 older and 2 newer so my sample size is limited however in both the newer properties I noticed that light switches cnstantly broke or sockets would come loose. Whats that about?

Probably down to using really cheap fittings.

There's a MASSIVE difference in quality between cheap, non-branded / unheard of brands of electrical fittings and the products from the major, established brands that tend to last 30+ years without problems in normal use.
There's also a massive difference in cost too like maybe 3X to 10X the price in some cases.

It's all about maximising the profits for the developer.

olcod · 31-01-2013 11:49AM

I was a ground worker during the boom, horrified at the things I saw and was asked to do, worked for 2 cowboy outfits before finally getting a job with one of the very few good firms ( yes their was good quality work done too, we can't tar everyone with the same brush ). I remember while working for one of the cowboy bodge it and scarper outfits I was told to go and connect up the pipework for a block of 2 houses ( sewer and rain water ) First thing I did was checked the fall of the pipes coming out of the houses before I started connecting, nearly all were back falling into the house, I told the Foreman there was no way I could pipe these houses due to the back fall and the floors will have to come up to put the pipework right inside the house, his solution...... wedge a stone on the pipe coming out of the wall so it reads as falling from that point on......WTF !!!!!!!!...... the poor sods who now live in those houses will be living with a smell of s**t for life, living with raw sewerage lying festering in pipes below there feet....lovely.....that was just one of many stories I have.

suicide_circus · 31-01-2013 11:51AM

my parent's house was built in the 50s. it's now standing about 60 years and not one structural defect has occured.

a friend of mine was renting a brand new apartment a few years back, her boyfriend tripped on the vaccum cleaner and fell through a partition wall.

SEPT 23 1989 · 31-01-2013 11:57AM

you know you have problems when a door is slammed and the walls shake

Did We Throw Up Rubbish Buildings in the Boom?

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